10/26/2010

Writing on Photographs

I already posted this picture before. It is the only picture I have I can verify of any of my Slovak great-great-grandparents. As you can see, someone wrote all the names of the persons in the photo, but one--the child seated in the center.

The word baba is Slovak for grandma. So it means that the writer is that woman's great-grandchild, or someone from my father's generation. However, that makes no sense. I do believe I recognize the handwriting as my own grandmother. Perhaps she was calling her own mother Baba in the sense of how one talks of someone to her own children. In any case, in my trove of pictures from my great-great aunt, the same photo exists without the writing:

So thanks to the first picture I know everyone in the photo but one. It is my great-great-grandmother with two of her children and their spouses. However, this bottom photo is part of a mystery I'll post about next.

2 Comments

That happened to me. I had a picture of my husband Don's Swedish relatives taken about the turn of the century. Two older people had Mor and Far written on them, which means mother and father. The picture was sent to Don's grandmother. I thought those two people must be her parents. I found out later that the picture was of her much older sister's family. They had called themselves Mother and Father.